Theyâre ALL autodidacts! You donât know what an auto-didact is? Then go and look it up! Canât be bothered? Okay. It means SELF-TAUGHT. Get it? Look it upâ¦ Self-taughtâ¦â¦â¦..

In the film Good Will Hunting, Will (played by Matt Damon) chides an Ivy League student for paying a fortune for an education that would be free but for the price of a library card. Although this is absolutely valid, very few people actually believe it. Colleges and universities provide academic qualifications, which can sometimes be seen as divisive, from a class and cultural standpoint; this in turn can create status-based hierarchies. âCredentialismâ has existed for centuries, with groups trying to maintain their advantage by containing knowledge and information and disseminating it via Guilds, Associations, and Secret Societies; or they can exclude people from knowledge by wrapping it up in esoteric or technological language.
As well as exploring some of the more contentious issues raised above, this series would be an entertaining and inspiring investigation into the lives, background, experiences and aspirations of those who consider themselves âautodidacticâ.

We will interview autodidacts across all fields of work and look at the broad phenomenon of lifelong learning and self-improvement. Many of the worldâs greatest thinkers, inventors, artists and poets arrive at their knowledge through earnest individual research and reading; self-education.

âAutodidactsâ would celebrate knowledge and learning, and is intended to inspire the audience to âbe their own teachersâ. Autodidacts are often quirky, revolutionary, reactionary, odd or downright eccentric; but more often than not, they are always opinionated!